JOHN PAUL MARTINEZ is a Filipino Canadian-American poet writing out of the Midwest. Their work is forthcoming or appears in Ninth Letter, Third Coast, Nashville Review, The Margins, The Slowdown podcast, and elsewhere. He holds a BA in Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and currently serves as a poetry reader for Poetry Northwest. They can be further found at johnpaulmartinez.com.

HOW DID YOU COME TO POETRY? TELL US THE STORY OF YOUR BEGINNING WITH POETRY.

Poetry began as a very solitary journey for me. Aside from the brief poetry unit in high school, I didn’t have much exposure or access to poems growing up, mainly because I just didn’t know where/how to begin. I really only knew about the traditional poetry they taught us in curriculums that adhered to strict meter/rhyme or from writers who may have lived decades before I was born. I found it very difficult to find any connection or relate to any of those poems. It wasn’t until partway through college that I became an increasingly avid reader and wanted to get back into reading poetry. I then came across the miraculous world of online journals and magazines, where I now had access to an endless amount of contemporary poetry. I remember being immensely inspired by the diversity of poems and poets. I had no idea of all the ways poetry could be written and expressed. I spent almost all my free time reading as many new poems and collections as I could find, started writing poems for myself, very nervously read a few at local open mics, attended readings on campus. Poetry swiftly became a large passion in my life. Then during my last year of undergrad, I had the wide fortune of taking two creative writing courses with the luminous Tiana Clark. I learned so much from her teachings and her craft. I continued to immerse myself in as much literary exposure and exercise as was possible and began shaping the literary framework onto which I continue to build every day.

YOUR POEM, “AND THEN WE ARE OKAY,” LACKS PUNCTUATION AND IS FULL OF WHITE SPACE. HOW DO YOU BALANCE STRUCTURE AND FORM WITH NARRATIVE IN YOUR WORK?

Working out a poem’s formatting is my favorite stage of revision. All of my drafts undergo countless reshaping and I oftentimes end up with multiple final versions of the same poem. Though, the narrative always comes first. Once I’m sure of the poem’s body, I can be completely unhesitant in shifting around/breaking apart the lines and not worry about losing its original intent. Constrained forms are excellent writing prompts as well. Contrapuntal, concrete, di/triptych, freeform… they all instill an added layer of challenge and personality.

I’m always intrigued by how a poem guides my gaze and am especially fond of those that allow my eyes to travel nonlinearly on the page. I love designing specific sightlines in my poems as a way to subtly establish some rhythm / pace / tempo / suspense / breath / unpredictability within their readings. Though I mostly write on digital documents, it’s easier for me to imagine the page without set lines or margins, just all whitespace. It’s like painting with words. The whole process is really fun.

YOU MENTIONED THAT YOU’RE ALSO A FREELANCE LINGUIST. WHAT ABOUT THE SPOKEN WORD MOST SIGNIFICANTLY MOVES BEYOND THE REALM OF POETRY FOR YOU?

I’ve been fascinated by language for as long as I’ve known, and I think that ultimately stems from a deep appreciation for communication. I wanted to study linguistics because I was perplexed by the ways in which we are able to express and transmit the innermost dialogue happening nonstop in our heads either (non)verbally, through signs, visual imagery, even touch—how all this happens seemingly as simple as breathing or instinct. When I first started writing poems, it was in tandem with these courses and I was enlivened by finding the contrast between the two. The analytical eye of linguistics, its rules and hypotheses, and the abstract expression of poetry which can subvert them. I was thrilled by having a foot in both these realms of language.

I am grateful for poetry because it is another vivid outlet for communication. We are able to learn, experience, and gain an understanding of others’ worldview and the way they approach and document life. All without ever even meeting them! I love remaining in this constant state of wonder from language, how the more you pay attention and the closer you inspect it, the more astounding it all seems.

THE THEME OF LOSS IS COMMON IN POETRY. HOW DO YOU MAKE SORROW, SUCH AS IN “AND THEN WE ARE OKAY”, UNIQUELY YOUR OWN?

Sorrow is a heavy object to commune with during the writing process. When I first began writing poems that were centered around an event(s) of loss, all I could focus on was the experienced grief. I would end up with poems that were completely sad, from the first line to the last. But I think these kind of poems become more resonant when they remain centered around loss while being viewed through the lens of absence—and in that I mean when the speaker includes also what they learned from the grief, what healing happened after. And so now when I write the same kind of poems, I still allow myself to completely grieve as much as required, but then make sure to set the poem aside to revisit it after finding growth. I love being devastated by a poem, but can appreciate it deeper if it provides insight on my own sorrow. So it’s become important to me to not enclose readers solely in that realm of pure grief. I always try to usher my sadness towards some field of joy.

HOW HAS YOUR RACIAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY IMPACTED YOUR WRITING JOURNEY?

There are many identities in my life from which I would like to write, though there is also so much I am still trying to grasp and familiarize myself with first. I was born in the Philippines, raised in Canada, and have lived for most of my adult life in the US. I also recently completed the process of becoming a U.S citizen. What connection I hold to my homeland(s). The privileges I’ve assimilated into along the way. The guilt of learning other languages in school before my native tongue. Or, relearning my native tongue on my own through study guides instead of with my family or friends. There remains so much of my self-history that I’m still undereducated/unaware about and want to understand before writing within those identities. It’s been deeply enlightening for both my writing and self to revisit/reanalyze older memories and other moments from the past as I learn and gain newer perspectives.

WAS THERE ANY SPECIFIC POINT OF INSPIRATION FOR “I AM NOT AS HUNGRY AS…?”

I began writing this poem after the first time visiting Yosemite National Park with an old friend. On both sides of the road leading to the main visitor center are these giant rock faces hundreds of feet high, and on top of a few of those were water runoffs which, because of their height, became towering waterfalls. Though, when the water hurtled over the cliffs’ edge and began its descent into the valley, it would become dispersed immediately into the air by the wind. My friend and I were observing one of these incomplete falls when they mentioned, “The next time that water will touch the ground, it will be from a cloud.” And I think about that a lot.

WHAT DOES YOUR WRITING PROCESS LOOK LIKE, FROM BLANK PAPER (OR DOCUMENT) TO FINAL DRAFT?

I tend to start with a particular line that stands out/keeps returning to me and then begin building the narrative around that. I currently have a running document on my laptop with over 300 pages of drafts—some finalized, many incomplete, and most of them as kernels of potential new poems. It’s nice having them all in one space. I can jump from one piece to another whenever I get caught up on a line and can think “That one line I wrote months before could work in this” or “This line would fit better in this other piece.” It makes the writing process flow a lot smoother and more continually. Once I feel I’ve reached the initial draft of the complete poem, the revision process starts and I can begin honing the poem’s lexicon, experimenting around with its format, and/or continue building its narrative. Revision takes up the largest portion of my writing process. It can take me weeks, even months, to finish even just a section of a poem. I still don’t have a concrete answer on when I know a poem is finished, though I do know that when I can add/change any parts of the poem and it sharpens/expands its narrative/intent, there is still more revision to be done. When I attempt to further add/change any parts of the poem and it instead takes away from that intent, then I feel the poem is finally complete.

YOU WERE A MENTOR FOR THE ADROIT JOURNAL SUMMER MENTORSHIP. ARE THERE ANY ELEMENTS OF POETRY THAT YOU FEEL CAN’T BE TAUGHT?

I love the seeing the way poets approach rhythm in their writing, either intentionally or intuitively. You can glean so much about the author’s personal voice/style from the way they direct their poems’ speaker(s) and way they structure each poem. This is especially recognizable when reading multiple poems or a collection; you can start to pick up on each poem’s specific cadences and become more in tune with all the elements distinct to that author’s writing. I’m always excited when I get to listen to a poet read their own work, so I can compare their speaker’s intended voice with the one created in my head.

HOW HAS POETRY IMPACTED YOUR LIFE MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, AND ALSO MOST SURPRISINGLY? WHY IS IT MEANINGFUL TO BOTH YOU PERSONALLY AND TO THE LITERARY WORLD AT LARGE?

It still (and will always) feels wildly unreal to me that people have read and may connect with something I wrote. Having started poetry as an entirely solitary self-practice to now being able to contribute to and interact with other writers in the literary community has been a constant happiness. Listening to phenomenal poets read their work. Learning through my peers, mentors, and literary heroes. It’s all so heartening.

Poetry is important to me because it has helped/always helps me understand my worldview. Every scene, every interaction—no matter how common/mundane it may seem—provides an opportunity to notice something new. I love poets and their work because it allows us readers a viewpoint into how they approach the world, how they use their voices for amplification and advocacy, how their words can provide comfort to us.

FINALLY, DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR YOUNG BIPOC WRITERS LOOKING TO INITIATE WRITING JOURNEYS OF THEIR OWN?

Be patient with your work and yourself. So much of poetry is continuous learning and continual growth, so be sure to take your time reading, writing, revising. Don’t forget to (or ever feel bad about) taking breaks from your writing—as many and as long as you need—and rest. Always reject rejection as a measure of your talent or ability to write. Keep writing and making your poems as authentic to you as you can. Trust in your words, they trust you.

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